Treyarch, speaking to IGN, said they were stunned by fan reaction to it. They didn’t expect people to take it as a serious-news related thing.

“Here’s my view – and again, I’m a simple director and not involved in the marketing at all,” he began by stressing. “However, it was absolutely not done for any kind of attention in any way. It was not done maliciously, or as any kind of scare tactic. I personally am very sorry for anyone who looked at it and got the wrong idea because it genuinely wasn’t meant that way.

“It was done on our channel, and it was to talk about the fiction of the world. I think we were as shocked as everybody else when it started blowing up, because essentially we were teeing up ready for a story beat. So again, very sorry for anyone who took it that way. It wasn’t meant that way at all – it was supposed to just be getting ready for a campaign element.”